The Starlight Saga
by Sandbat
Summary: A fanfiction story of Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, based on several dreams I had after seeing it.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: This story originally came to me in a series of vividly episodic dreams that I had after seeing Michael Jackson's _Moonwalker_ sometime over the Christmas holidays between the end of 1989 and the beginning of 1990. I was twelve years old. I first wrote the story down in a spiral notebook that I was keeping as a dream diary; I went back and re-visited it several times over the past twenty years, polishing it and re-working it as I developed as a writer. But I didn't share it with very many people._ It's Moonwalker fanfiction_, I reasoned. _Who'd read it? _

To this day I have no explanation for what transpires here in this tale, other than the fact that it was dropped in my lap by the powers that be, and I couldn't not write it. I grew up listening to Michael Jackson's music. It has been a huge influence on my life, as it has been with just about everyone else in my generation. His passing is an unfathomable loss, and this story is dedicated to him.

Another thing - though the idea of the powers of some of the characters in this story being elementally-based has a part of the story since I was first writing it at the age of 12-13, I feel that I must also acknowledge certain similarities to the awesome online Moonwalker RPG by Sarah J. Holt, which I also participated in during the summer of 2003. I guess there must be something to the old saw about great minds thinking alike. :P Neal Stephenson's novel _Snow Crash_ is also in a very similar vein, so much so that I can't not mention it either.

Also: No copyright infringement of any sort is intended with this story.

ETA: By now I have seen the new _G.I. GOE_ film. And I'm sure there will be folks who will point out the similarities in this story. Nanotechnology is not a new concept - especially not in the realms of Science Fiction - though its full potential may be a few years beyond our grasp here in the real world. For more on this subject, I'd recommend _Engines Of Creation: The Coming Era Of Nanotechnology_ by Eric Drexler, and _The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Trancend Biology_, by Ray Kurzweil.

Anyway, on with the show:

THE STARLIGHT SAGA

CHAPTER ONE

"Rain, where are you?"

Kristoph's insistent query buzzed through Rain's earpiece, prompting her to adjust the volume to a lower setting.

"Still here. I'll tell you when something happens," she muttered back to her partner, who at the moment was still holed up in his surveillance van.

Rain had been discreetly following mob underboss Benny D'Nofrio and one of his underlings for blocks now. Thanks mostly due to the noise of the city traffic and the usual Saturday night revelers out on the busy city street, Rain knew she wasn't close enough by far for D'Nofrio to hear their whispered conversation...but his companion was another story altogether. Rain knew for a fact that the other man, one Peter Franchetti, was supposed to be dead. She'd found the man's body herself, in fact. Yet there he was, staggering alongside his cohort as they swilled liquor out of a sliver flask that they kept passing back and forth. A terrible premonition had begun to surface in Rain's mind over the past hour and a half that she'd been following them, particularly since Franchetti reeked of an all-too-familiar Etheric taint.

Rain herself was strictly operating "under radar..." as if she had a choice. She never seemed to attract much notice from the mundane people around her, wherever she went. It was as if they instinctively knew she did not belong, and generally chose not to perceive her presence on a subconscious level. Store clerks took her money without ever looking up from their registers. Bartenders and wait staff at the establishments she frequented served her without ever really seeing her at the table or on the other side of the counter. She breezed through metal detectors and security checkpoints at airports without even trying. She had no ID beyond the fake ones that were provided to her in the course of her missions, and no Social Security number. There was no official record anywhere of her existence. To the "Normals" Rain was as good as invisible, and to the "System" she was practically a ghost.

No one ever saw Rain unless she wanted them to - and even then, it was never a sure bet.

"D'Nofrio and Franchetti are headed into the alley behind Giovanni's. I'm following them in," Rain whispered into her mic.

***

Benny D'Nofrio had felt that there was something strange about his buddy Petey all evening. It wasn't anything he could put his finger on, but the guy had been slightly "off" all night. Generally he was a real ladies man, but tonight he'd kept all the broads at arms' length. He wasn't being very chatty, either. He didn't seem to have any problem with hitting the booze, though, which was also weird - in Benny's experience, Petey generally liked to keep a clear head when they were out on the prowl.

Earlier Benny had asked Petey if anything was bugging him. Petey simply claimed that he had a headache, and Benny had shrugged it off. It had been a long week. He was feeling a little beat down himself. When Benny suggested that the two nip over to Giovanni's, a local hotspot they frequented on almost a nightly basis, Petey had been all for it.

They were in the middle of a shortcut through an alleyway on their way to the place when everything went horribly wrong.

The alley was empty, which wasn't too strange. What was so strange all of a sudden was the fact that Benny could feel Petey's eyes on his back. The hairs on the back of the gangster's neck rose as he turned to face his companion. Petey's eyes were shining with an unnatural yellow gleam in the dim lamplight. Something within Benny D'Nofrio knew that it wasn't just the booze, and was screaming for him to run.

So Benny did what anyone in his situation would have done...he went for his gun. Big mistake.

Before he could blink, Petey knocked the gun out of his hand with a wide sweep of his arm - and he was still standing about ten feet away from Benny. His arm, which had stretched to cover the distance, was metal. Petey's yellow eyes were glowing hellishly in his steel face, which contorted obscenely as he pinned Benny to the brick wall of the building with his abnormally outstretched limbs. Benny did not have within him the words to express his horror at the utter wrongness of what he was seeing, other than to whimper,

"This has to be a dream. This is a nightmare."

'Petey' just grinned, his lips skinning back to reveal row upon row of horrible metallic buzzaw teeth, like the maw of a robot shark. Sickeningly, the muscles under 'Petey's' skin seemed to roll and boil as he burst upward and outward into a hideous skeletal abomination that reeked of decay, bristling with spines and flailing tentacles that quickly ensnared him in a vicelike grip and lifted him clear up off of the ground. Benny choked back a wave of nausea at the stench as the thing snarled,

_"I have to borrow something of yours. I hope you don't mind." _Its voice was now a hollow mechanical rasp, like nothing even remotely resembling anything produced by normal human vocal cords; it resonated unpleasantly through Benny D'Nofrio's being like a painful burst of electricity. The distorted metal face rippled like quicksilver, the once-familiar features melting and shifting to resemble Benny's own.

Suddenly the thing jolted as if struck from behind, keeling over to reveal over to reveal a dozen small, dark protrusions like glassy black diamond knives that were lodged in its back. Snarling, it abruptly dropped Benny and turned to face its attacker...a tiny redhead in a raincoat who tossed more of the razor-edged projectiles at the metal monster, hitting it square in the face.

_"Run,"_ the woman shouted to Benny, her voice all but drowned out by the monster's enraged wailing as it charged her. That wall of sound hit Benny like an oncoming truck, shattering the streetlamps that lined the alleyway and throwing him back a few feet into the brink wall of the building behind him.

***

_"Gaaaahhh!" _

Listening to the battle in progress in the safety of his surveillance van, Rain's Danish partner Kristoph yelped in unexpected pain as the Nergal Faction Drone's desperate, unfocused sonic attack resounded in Rain's mic, resulting in feedback that felt like an ice pick was being plunged repeatedly between his temples. Kristoph, Rain and others of their kind were more resistant to the Drones' caterwauling than ordinary humans were - which was fortunate for them, but boded ill for the man that Kristoph knew was caught in the crossfire in the alleyway...

***

Covering his ears, Benny saw the woman calmly draw something from her coat in with lightning-fast flick of her wrist...it was a sword, some kind of samurai sword. Before Benny had time to blink or flee or do anything else, he saw the redhead go to town on the thing, ginsuing it like a soda can in one if those infomercials that Benny had seen on late-night TV. With a final liquid gurgle the thing that had looked like his friend collapsed, and quickly dissolved into a pool of metal slag on the concrete.

The lady put her sword back and fixed Benny with a solid, rock-hard, blue-eyed stare that felt like ice.

"Stay out of trouble," she said flatly. Then she stepped back into the shadows and melted away into the night, leaving Benny alone in the dark with the puddle, his bleeding eardrums, and his still-racing heart. Thus he was found by some of the guys in the club a few seconds later, when they came spilling out of the back entrance to see what all the commotion had been about.

Hours later, when Benny D'Nofrio was able to speak coherently again, all he was able to tell them was that he'd almost been waxed by some thing that wasn't Petey, and then a broad had come along and killed it. Mercifully, most of the details about the monster had already begun to fade from Benny's brain as soon as it bubbled away into an unrecognizable silvery sludge, as if the sight of the creature that had attacked him had been too horrible for the human mind to retain. But barring the monster itself, what disturbed Benny the most was the fact that other than her red hair and her hard, cold eyes, he really couldn't remember what the girl looked like either.

His crew soon became convinced that Benny was losing it. When Peter Franchetti failed to turn up, many of them wondered what had actually become of Benny D'Nofrio's AWOL right-hand man. Meanwhile, those who actually did know what had become of Peter were more concerned with the thing that had temporarily usurped his place.

***

Kristoph almost jumped straight up out of his seat at the gentle tapping that sounded at is window of the surveillance van where he'd been sitting for the past six hours. He was perfectly aware that Rain was capable of slipping into the van without a sound if she were so inclined, but in Kristoph's case she was usually polite enough to knock.

"That drone was stealing the shape of its victim. I'm positive," Rain told him as she climbed into the van. As usual, her face betrayed little in the way of her emotion, but the tone of her voice was grim.

"What do you mean, stealing the shape of its victim?" Kristoph sputtered.

"Exactly as I said. The Drone led him into an alley, and then it grabbed him and started to shift into his exact likeness. It looked like it was killing D'Nofrio in the process. I took care of it," Rain said.

"You're serious about this? You saw this with your own eyes?" Kristoph asked. Rain nodded.

"It's probably some sort of corrupted Metamorphic Enhancer that they've developed; that's what it felt like, anyway," Rain explained. "It caused the same kind of sick resonance in the Ether."

"What is this going to mean?" Kristoph lamented. "What if they've managed to do this before now? They could look like anyone, go anywhere! Talk about identity theft. What are we going to do now?"

"Same as always. We hunt them down and we destroy them," Rain said simply.

***

Back at the safehouse, Kristoph broadcast his report and his request for further instructions through the usual channels.

**"Blue Canary here," **he typed, giving his callsign. **"Regen caught a Nergal Drone shapeshifting into the exact form of one of its victims,"** he typed into the encrypted window, quoting Rain word's exactly as she has spoken them. It was only a few minutes before he received a response. Many of their comrades knew that Rain had been on the prowl that evening, so it followed that there would be many of their fellows on the online network of their friends and allies that they called the "Relay" waiting for the results of her sortie.

Kristoph knew that the reaction to his missive was bound to be met with considerable alarm. No sooner had he settled back in his chair to wait, when an instant messenger window with the words,

**"TQ here. Come again?"** popped up on his screen.

**"This is on the level. Regen confirms. What are the Kommissar's instructions?"**

**"Standby. Punting the ball over to Kommie." **

In a few more minutes, the message repeated;

**"Greetings, Schatz. Am I reading this right?"**

**"She was very clear about what she witnessed,"** Kristoph answered. **"She believes it to be the work of a new type of M.E. Please advise."**

**"Where is she now?"**

**"Here,"** Kristoph answered him. **"Shall I put her on?"**

**"Bitte,"** was the Kommissar's response.

***

Kristoph opened the door upon a scene that was pretty much what he expected. Rain sat on the floor surrounded by her handiwork; row upon row of her obsidian throwing knives, or "shot" as she liked to call them. She worked with a disturbingly mechanical, almost obsessive-compulsive precision as she steadily added to the array, chipping out new blades from chunks of the volcanic glass with a blunt piece of elk antler. She was very practiced at her craft; each blade was a dark, deadly gem that could rend flesh and pierce bone. And though the Nergal Drones were metallic, silicone-based creatures by nature (as were all of Pleiadian stock) in certain physical states they were as vulnerable to the wicked little blades as the earthlings they were attempting to infiltrate.

TQ had once joked that they were her "lucky stars."

Kristoph knew that she would carefully sweep up the pulverized obsidian dust left over from her pressure flaking and store it in tiny, sealed plastic tubes; the dust had several nasty but undeniably effective uses all on its own. The volcanic glass itself was ideal because it held a better edge than steel - obsidian scalpels were even in use among surgeons, in fact, when steel just wasn't keen enough - and it didn't show up on any metal detectors. You couldn't really throw them very far - or into Pleiadian flesh at all once it had solidified, or the brittle volcanic glass would shatter. Rain sometimes used throwing stars made of anodized steel or black ceramic when more durability was required. Still, the obsidian ones usually got the job done well enough. They were practically her calling card.

Even more deadly than Rain's obsidian shot was her skill with the _shikomizue_; the single-edged katana blade concealed in a simple wooden cane that she'd used to kill over a hundred Drones in her many long years as the Einherjar Faction's most lethal covert agent.

Kristoph cleared his throat, and Rain glanced upward. For a second her blue eyes reflected the light from the doorway behind him with a feral gleam and he faltered, forgetting what it was he was supposed to tell her as he was momentarily transfixed by her diamond-edged sapphire stare. Even after all the years he'd known her, Kristoph had never quite gotten used to Rain's ability to freeze people with her eyes. The Gorgon's Stare, they called it; it was a gift that many of their people possessed. To them, it could be unsettling enough; many humans found it downright disturbing.

_It's bad enough that she can't really "turn it off..."_

"The Kommissar is online now. He wants to talk to you," Kristoph said after a few seconds, when Rain realized what had stalled her friend and blinked, abruptly jarring him out of his trance.

"All right," Rain said, laying her implements aside as she got to her feet.

"No one doubts your word," Kristoph assured her. "But they're pretty shaken by the news." Kristoph's worry was clearly etched on his ruggedly handsome face. The biggest challenge that they'd always faced in hunting the monsters down had been the Drones' ability to take on human form and blend into the general populace. But until now, they'd never been able to steal the forms of _specific_ humans. Apparently that had just changed.

"We should have expected this," Rain said softly. "They were bound to come up with a means of impersonating their prey sooner or later. We should have been prepared." From the tone of her voice, it sounded to Kristoph as though she blamed herself personally.

Knowing her, this assumption was probably pretty astute.

By the time Rain got over to Kristoph's workstation, the screen read,

**"Hallo Liebschen."**

Rain's mouth twisted into a wry ghost of a smirk---the closest most people ever got to seeing her truly smile.

"Should I leave you two alone?" Kristoph joked.

"How do we know he wasn't addressing you?" Rain deadpanned as the reply flashed across the screen,

**"Schatz tells me that you've run into something interesting,"** the Kommissar's message ran.

**"It was nothing I couldn't handle,"** Rain typed back. **I respectfully request your permission to check out local contacts to see if this is an isolated phenomenon, or if there's going to be more of them."**

The Kommissar's responded:

**"Granted. Run this one to ground for me, Regen."**

**"Will do. I'll let you know what I find,"** Rain typed.

**"**_**Sehr gut**_**. Keep an eye on Schatz, Will you?** Kristoph just grinned and rolled his eyes at this.

**"Of course I will, sir. Take care,"** Rain responded.

"I have an idea of where to start looking," Rain said as she headed back to the room where she'd been working before the Kommissar had summoned her. "A few people in this town still owe me some favors. If anything strange has turned up, they might know about it. And then there there's Michael." So saying, she stood and walked back to the room where her gear awaited. "I'm certain Michael is well capable of taking anything they can dish out, and then some. Convincing him to get back into the trenches with us will be another thing entirely."

"You don't have to tell me," Kristoph remarked. "Hey, If this is a new type of Metamorphic Enhancer, it's probably come from one of their nerve centers under the Pacific," Kristoph ventured as Rain collected her sword-cane and her finished blades.

"That would be my guess," Rain agreed. "We need to get in touch with everyone, and make sure we're all accounted for."

Kristoph's reply was cut off by the sudden chiming of his cellphone. He retrieved it from his jeans pocket and answered it.

"Hello?"

"Hey Kristoph. It's Justin," the speaker on the other end announced.

"Justin? Hello!" Kristoph said. "I was just going to call you, actually -"

"Word travels fast," Rain muttered bemusedly.

"Word is that you and Rain just ran into something pretty unusual," Justin stated. "I'm headed out that way to check it out for myself. Has anyone heard from Michael?"

"You're coming here?" Kristoph asked him, nodding to Rain as she spoke. Rain made a face, her second facial expression of the evening - a record for her. Then she pointed towards her gear, and then towards the window. Kristoph nodded.

"Can I speak to Rain?" Justin asked Kristoph.

"Rain? Let me see if she's left already," Kristoph said. Rain's eyes widened as she gave him a look at clearly stated, _"I am not here!"_ This would have been clear on anyone's face, but the Gorgon's Stare gave the message an extra push that sent it flying right into Kristoph's brain like an arrow hitting the center of a target.

"She isn't here," Kristoph told Justin, as Rain began gathering her finished shards, tucking them into an assortment of hidden pockets in the sleeves and lining of her overcoat. The last item she concealed in her coat was her sword-cane.

Have either of you spoken with Michael?" Justin repeated.

"Michael? Not in about a week," Kristoph answered, as Rain looked back up from her task in sudden interest. "Why, does he know something?"

"Something's wrong. I can't find him. I must've tried contacting him at the store almost a dozen times, and I haven't gotten any answer."

"We haven't heard from him either," Kristoph said, with a significant glance at Rain. She quirked an eyebrow by way of response, and Kristoph hit the speakerphone button on his cell.

"Last anyone heard, he was going to take those three kids he's been sponsoring out to the park before dinner. He hasn't checked in since," Justin explained.

"Really?" Kristoph asked, eyebrows raising as he turned to Rain. She nodded back, already halfway out the open window.

"Listen, can't I just talk to her? This is big. If they're trying to go after Michael - "

"Rain's already on it," Kristoph assured him.

"_Good hunting_," he mouthed to the open window, before returning to his conversation with Justin. She was already gone.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I still have absolutely no idea how this is going to go over, so I'll just upload it. Oh, and the H.P. Lovecraft influences in this story will probably also be pretty obvious. Oh well, here it is.

***

Justin arrived at the safehouse a short time later, teetering near the brink of panic.

"Were you able to contact Michael?" Justin frantically asked Kristoph.

"No. This is bad," Kristoph responded as he shook his head in denial.

"This is dangerous," Justin agreed tersely. "Did Rain come back?"

"Not yet. She went to see if she could find them. She hasn't returned, and she hasn't checked in yet."

"Great!" Justin exclaimed. "Just what we need! Why can't they at least leave their comlinks on so we know they haven't died?"

***

Rain made it to the outskirts of the forest, to a spot where she knew Michael and his three foster children often played and picnicked. The place would had probably seemed idyllic under the midday sun; under the full moon, there was still something positively magical about it. However, there was no sign of them there in the tall grass, and nothing at all to indicate why Michael had fallen out of contact.

These heavily-forested foothills were all national parkland, and were often used by campers, rock-climbers, and hikers; still, Rain had heard rumors that the forest also occasionally served as cover for those with shadier purposes. There were also urban legends of a part of the woods that was so overrun by spiders that no one in their right mind would want to visit it. A whole section that was blacked out on the maps of the local police and park rangers; a place where the law didn't go.

Was the Nergal Faction somehow involved?

_Only one way to find out._

Rain slipped between the boughs of the nearby trees without a sound. Within minutes she spotted the sign:

**'KEEP OUT. NO TRESSPASSING. THESE GROUNDS ARE PATROLLED.'**

A mounting sense of unease hurried her steps as she darted past it, and headed deeper into the woods.

The first spiderweb caught her by surprise, catching her full in the face as she made her way past a small stream through the large rocks and tree-trunks that bordered its banks. She fought her body's instinctive impulse to flail until the sticky strands were shaken free - after all, spiders were natural creatures and these woods were their home. _She_ was the intruder here. She had a wry mental image of herself slashing desperately around with her drawn sword as an army of arachnids swarmed down upon her.

_In such close quarters, I'd be just as likely to damage myself as them._

She spotted the web's occupant as it sped down the remains of its web towards her - fast, and unnaturally huge. Even as she ducked away, her Ether-sight caught what any normal human would have missed.

Familiarized. Controlled. _By Who? _

She'd met only one Aleph in her entire life with that ability, and he'd only been a child at the time.

_It's only been...what has it been, thirty years? Thirty-five? Surely it can't have been that long already!_

The pieces were still falling together in her head when she saw the comet arc overhead, and heard the first scream._ Felt_ it as much as heard it, the nanites jolting to attention within her being at the sound of it.

_Oh no..._

Clouds were gathering overhead; something big was about to go down, and she had no doubt as to who was at the center of it.

She darted off at a run towards the source of the call.

***

Much later, with the benefit of hindsight, Michael would often reflect on the events of this night, and just how quickly a situation could go completely, horribly wrong. 'The drop of a hat' didn't even begin to describe it.

He wasn't supposed to be blowing holes in a mountainside, sending the hired mercenaries of the world's most insidious drug lord crashing down along with several kilos of blasted rock. On a normal night, Katy, Zeke, and Sean would've been in bed – not menaced by the same drug lord, who'd threatened to inject Katy with whatever had been in that syringe. Who'd struck her (_no!_) and who'd given the order to '_kill her first_....'

The Kommissar would eventually suggest that perhaps Michael had experienced a full-on berserker rage, with the implication that such an event would have been fully understandable under the circumstances. But Michael had never been a berserker. Therefore, when his lucky star zoomed overhead and the transformation took hold, he'd done everything he'd had to do with a sick feeling in his stomach warring with the stubborn resolve that none of these men would ever be allowed to hurt another child again, _ever - _and the clear knowledge that he had no other choice.

And as he acted to protect the young ones who'd placed their trust in him, he couldn't help but remember another time, and another little girl...

***

He'd been advised against coming to Earth in the beginning. It was too dangerous, and it was said that his personage was too important to be put at such risk. But Michael had always wanted to go where he could do the most good - and he'd firmly believed that Earth was that place.

They'd known that Nergal lay somewhere beneath the sea; dormant, but not exactly inactive. His influence upon the human race was subtle but insidious; it could be seen anywhere where hatred, intolerance, and prejudice won out, or any place where madness, strife, and injustice was rampant. If Nergal couldn't have the planet back through the rule of interstellar law, he'd simply convince the human race to destroy itself from the inside out. Meanwhile, the vast majority of Earth's citizens remained blissfully unaware of the war that still raged between Nergal's followers and the Marduk faction.

The Alephs had never been very numerous, and they tended to group together in the secret places in the world. They'd been Nergal's first targets; if he hated humanity, he hated those who were born carrying traces of Sirian and Pleiadean nanotechnology even more. The Einherjar Faction had finally emerged during World War Two in response to this persecution - indeed, to _all_ persecution. If the Nazis had the gall to use the ancient Teutonic legends as a part of their propaganda machine, the Kommissar joked that they'd find their own legends waiting to destroy them. The Einherjar were loosely allied with the Marduk Faction, but they were seen as wild cards; loose canons.

Michael remembered how that had come to be, how he'd found himself pulled back into the conflict. How he'd befriended Annie McNamara, hereditary leader of the Sidhe - the Alephs of Irish, British, and Scottish descent. She and her two children – fraternal twins – hid in plain sight amongst the humans in a modest flat on the outskirts of town.

He remembered the day he'd volunteered to watch over the twins while Annie took care of some chores in the house. He remembered how she'd hugged them and told them she loved them before sending them out to play.

He wondered if she'd known what was about to happen.

The twins – sunny, outgoing Belenus and shy, quiet Rhiannon, soon decided upon a game of hide-and-go-seek. Bel was quickly found, but Rhiannon had gotten the idea to sneak back into the flat and hide.

Michael found Annie first, lying facedown on the bedroom floor. Then he spotted Rhiannon, still frozen where she hid behind the dresser.

The assassin-Drone was already long gone. It hadn't noticed her at all.

She'd seen the whole thing.

_***_

He had to finish this quickly. He hadn't meant for the kids to witness anything like this. He knew very well how violence could scar the soul.

Michael had hoped it was all over when the drug lord finally scrambled for the safety of his walled-in cavern of steel and rock.

The first laser blast from the cannon caught him off guard, and sent him tumbling.

He straightened back out and flew back over the summit just in time to see the cannon powering up for another shot. Lideo was targeting the children.

Michael marshaled just about all of the power he had left, and _screamed..._

***

Whatever had just happened, it was all over by the time Rain made it to the source of the explosion – a crevice high up on the cliffside, which was now a smoldering, smoking ruin. From her vantage point, she could see the remains of what had probably been some kind of heavy machinery. It was now a melted, twisted lump of metal lying in a pile of debris. Michael was long gone.

Nothing should have survived whatever had done this; but it seemed that someone had done so. She could see movement further up the ravine. Something was dragging itself away from the wreckage.

She tried to tell herself that it wasn't a presence that she didn't already recognize - that when she finally made her way to them up the rock-strewn cliff face, it would be someone utterly unknown to her. This delusion died the moment she got close.

Only his tertiary nanites had been active the last time she'd seen him. This was the case with most Variants, Alephs somehow born to perfectly human parents. A quick scan confirmed that his secondary and primary nanites were now active, and they were putting him back together right before her very eyes. To her Ether-sight, they resembled countless tiny points of light burning brightly within him. They'd rebuild him exactly the way that he'd been before the blast, right down the last strand of his hair.

"Oh Frank," she said, dropping to a crouch beside him. "I thought I told you to stay out of trouble."

***

He'd been what - twelve years old the last time she'd seen him?

Thirty-three years ago, now. That's what it was. They'd been investigating rumors of Nergal Faction infiltration into the local mob, just like now. She'd been following a lead when the sound of violence caused her to turn off into a dark alley. There he was, shouting in vain at the older, taller boys who were in the act of playing keep-away with his dark glasses.

She'd melted out of the shadows then, turning the full strength of her Gorgon's Stare on the bullies.

"Gentlemen," she greeted them sardonically.

She had the grim satisfaction of seeing them all freeze for a heartbeat, and then run. The Kommissar himself couldn't have done better. She went after them like a stooping hawk, snatching the glasses away from the largest one as he ran screaming into the night.

"I assume these belong to you?" She held the shades out to the smaller boy with a sidelong glance and one of her almost-smiles, hoping to spare him the full effect of her gaze.

"Uh, yeah," he answered, taking the glasses from her and putting them back on with obvious relief. To her surprise, he looked her right in the eyes just before he did so – though not without a reflexive flinch. One look at the boy revealed the reason why he wore dark glasses; one of his eyes was blue, and the other was a darker shade that she couldn't quite make out in the dim light of the evening. She felt a pang of sympathy for him. Heterochromia had been a tell-tale sign of Variance since time out of mind.

"Are you all right?"

"I think so, but they killed my spider," he said mournfully. He pointed to a small, dark spot on the concrete; a thoroughly smashed arachnid had probably been nearly the size of a tennis ball while it was alive.

"Oh. I'm sorry," she said.

"It's okay. There'll be plenty more where he came from." He didn't sound okay. She felt bad for him. Still – there was a lead left to chase down. She didn't have any more time to waste.

"Stay out of trouble, all right?" She turned to leave.

"HEY! I'm not done talking to you!" the boy exclaimed. Rain turned back to him, eyes wide with astonishment at his sudden outburst. He flinched again and looked at the top of his shoes. "I mean – that was really swell the way you just appeared out of nowhere like that. Was that magic?"

"Perhaps," she said, still half-smiling. He could see it.

"My name's Frankie Lideo. That's spelled L-I-D-E-O. It's very easy," he told her. There was a pause. "And you are..."

"Rain."

"Rain? That's it? That doesn't sound like a real name," he said with some suspicion. "Is that a nickname or something?"

"I assure you, it's the only one I have." This wasn't exactly the case, but she'd flatly refused to go by _Rhiannon _since she'd had a choice in the matter.

"Well, it's been a pleasure meeting you, Frank - but I must bid you good evening."

Three blocks later, he was still following her. She had no idea how. Nobody had ever quite managed that before.

"You know you're dressed like a man, right?" he remarked.

"Indeed," she said, allowing the tiniest hint of amusement into her voice.

"What's that stick for? Is that a cane? You don't look like you need a cane."

"I don't."

Perhaps a demonstration was in order; though more than a few katanas had made it back to the States since World War II had ended, she knew it was unlikely that the boy had ever seen one in action.

"Stand clear," she told him. "I mean it. I don't want to risk hitting you on the backswing." He looked back up at her as if he expected that this was just another attempt to ditch him – and then he finally stepped back several feet, keeping his eyes on her the whole time.

"It's a _sword_? Why do you have a sword?" he demanded, after she'd gone through a Battojutsu kata.

"There are too many guns in this town already," she said, her sad half-smile back in place.

***

_Too many guns in this town._

There were bodies strewn all over the place – armored, uniformed men fallen along with their weapons, felled by whatever had stricken this place. A quick sweep of the area revealed the true extent of the carnage. An army. He'd had a whole army here, and no one had known._ An Aleph with this much firepower?_ _No wonder the Drones would want to hit this place. I wonder what it was all for? And how did Michael get involved?_

"Frank, What happened here?" she asked. "What is this place?"

"Rain?" he asked weakly, opening his eyes. "You're not here. You're not _real_."

"I'm really here, Frank," she said. She took one of his scorched-gloved hands and squeezed it – turning it over to see the blackened, cracked remains of an amber ring, the fossilized spider inside exposed to the open air.

"I need you to tell me what happened. Did you see what attacked you? I'm looking for a man. African-American, well-dressed. Was he a part of what took place here?"

"I'll _kill _that tin-headed creep!" he shouted, attempting to struggle to his feet. "Him and his little cockroaches, too!"

"Don't move," Rain said, extracting her hand from his as the words sank in.

_There were no Drones here tonight. Michael did all of this, and Michael doesn't lash out unless he's provoked.  
_

_**Very** provoked._

"Wait! Where are you going?" he asked, grabbing at the sleeve of her overcoat. His mismatched eyes were wide, the pupils dilated as wide as they could go. He was still in shock. She noted that the flesh around the socket of his right eye was badly scarred, but she didn't have any time to wonder about that now. She pulled away, scooting towards the edge of the ravine.

"My apologies. I have to get to the bottom of this," she said. His nanites were active. He'd heal. Whether or not this was a good thing remained to be seen.

"Oh no you don't! You come back here!"

"_Sir!" _The shout rang from the plateau nearby, startling her into the shadows. Apparently not all of his men were dead yet.

"_Don't let her leave!"_ Frankie Lideo ordered, making another attempt to pull himself up.

(She could still hear him pleading with her, all those years ago -_ "Please don't go -" )_

"Don't let _who _leave?" the helmeted soldier asked.

He glanced back up, but she was already gone.

No one ever saw Rain unless she wanted them to.


	3. Chapter 3

Being this far up above the Earth's atmosphere never failed to put things in perspective. The stars were so dazzlingly bright, and everything seemed so deceptively peaceful. Even the pain of the laser wound in his flank seemed so very far away. There were times that he wished he could just remain like this forever, caught up in the endless song and dance of the cosmos.

Michael knew it couldn't last.

Sure enough, there they were; hanging in deep orbit, just waiting for their chance. They'd recognized him on sight. He deliberately placed himself between the approaching ships and the Earth, morphing slowly and majestically back into his robotic form. He shook his head and spread out his arms as if to shield the blue planet from attack, ignoring their frantic transmissions. His message to the oncoming fighters was already clear.

_Stand down._

The wound in his side was all-too visible, even as far away as he was from them. Word would get back to the folks at home that something had happened, that he'd seen action tonight. The wheels of the political machine that had hung over him like a dark cloud since he'd come to this planet were already in motion.

The fighters broke formation, streaking around and back towards their point of origin to disappear into the distance against a field of stars. Michael envied them. Even so, he knew he had to get back down to Earth's surface. If nothing else, he had to let the kids know that he wasn't gone for good. He went back into ship form, and was gone in a flash.

_/Come together/_

_/Right now/_

_/Over me./_

***

Justin and Kristoph's night had been no less interesting. The stream of invective that Justin let loose upon seeing what was left of the front of Michael's apartment at #122 (adjacent to THE CLOCKWORKS, WONG'S DRY CLEANERS and MITCHELL'S MUSIC) would have put an entire armada of sailors to shame.

They went to Club 30s next. The ghosts there were restless and agitated. The energy of that place responded to Michael, and Michael alone; so all the two of them were able to glean was the fact that there'd been some sort of attack, and Michael was already long gone.

Strike two.

It was then that Rain finally contacted them. Her message was very brief, and very cryptic. She'd missed finding Michael by inches, and what she _had_ found - whatever that was - had rattled her very badly. There'd been no indication of this in her voice, of course; but both of them had known her long enough to be able to read between the lines. The worse the situation was, the less she'd say. The two of them could hear her dancing around her words, selecting them with a minimalist precision that was truly unnerving.

She'd told them to come to the park on the outskirts of the forest, and here they were.

"You'd at least think she could tell us what she found," Justin said, scanning the line of trees in front of him.

"Yeah," Kristoph answered. He was used to Rain playing her cards close to her chest; this was just another night for him, another mission.

"I mean, if it was Nergals, you'd think she would've said something."

"It's not Nergals this time," Rain said, her voice coming from behind them.

"Oh geez, would you please not _do_ that?" Justin exclaimed, spinning around. There she was, standing in the dim light of the pre-dawn.

"What happened?" Kristoph asked her, handing her the flask he'd brought with him. Rain shot him a look of thanks and unscrewed the top; the green tea she favored was strong, and it had been hours since she'd last had anything to eat or drink.

"Has there been any word from Michael and the children?" Rain asked, after a long swallow.

"Nothing yet -" Kristoph answered.

"Somebody really did a number on his place!" Justin exclaimed, interrupting him. "There were shell casings all over the street, enough for a whole army. Something went down at Club 30s, too! The windows are all shot out -"

"...we were hoping you'd found something," Kristoph finished around Justin's explanation.

"I did. There's an Aleph hiding out in these woods," Rain said.

"Really. Anyone we know?" Justin asked her.

"Maybe," Rain responded. "Do you remember Frank?"

"Frank...you mean little Frankie?" Justin asked. "That kid with all the spiders, who kept following you around everywhere? Goddamn, he carried a torch. Whatever happened to that kid? Wow, how long has it been?"

"Thirty-three years - "

"Damn, that long already? Where has the time gone? How is he mixed up in this?" Justin asked her.

"I've got to get back," Rain said, turning back towards the woods."Call TQ and tell him what's going on. Keep trying to reach Michael and the kids. I'll be back in touch by noon."

"Hang on. I'm coming with you," Justin said. "Kristoph, keep an ear on things, will you? If we're not back..."

"If you're not back, and Michael's not back, then we'll all have much bigger things to worry about, won't we?" Kristoph reminded them.

Rain and Justin glanced at each other, and sprinted into the woods.

***

In the end, it all came back to the balance of power. Who held it, how they'd acquired it, and to which end it was used.

Drones had been trying to infiltrate the City's gangs for years. It was a major strategic point, an entry point where Nergal's taint could seep in and disseminate into the rest of the nation.

She'd told Frankie the first part, but not the second. He was just a kid at the time, and most of his nanites weren't even active. He knew he was _different_, but he had no idea what he actually was. Rain wasn't about to tell him, nor had she planned on involving him in her campaign against those within the City's underworld who'd already fallen under Nergal's sway.

So he'd ended up involving himself, anyway.

He never learned exactly what her true purpose was within the City – only that some of the major players had to go down. His father was slightly connected, a small-time associate of the local mob. The fact that the outfit that his father belonged to stood to gain by Rain's activities was purely coincidental.

Frankie paid attention to what was going on around him on the streets, and he was unnaturally precocious. He occasionally overheard things that were significant. He was extremely good with machines and chemicals, even at that age. She wondered why he spent so much time following her around, when he could've been playing with friends his own age.

It wouldn't register to Rain until much later that he'd _had_ no other friends.

She eventually taught him some of the rudiments of Kendo. Not a whole lot. They hadn't had time for that – and truth to be told, he hadn't had the patience to learn. He'd had something of a nasty temper and a low tolerance for frustration, even then.

She still had no idea how he kept finding her, what with her own natural tendency to fade into the background or disappear into the crowd. It baffled and exasperated her. And it was dangerous, considering the line of work she was in.

One night he managed to figure out where Rain was going without her even knowing. He'd swiped the spark plugs from the car of a gang lieutenant that she'd been trying to question for days, preventing his escape.

Justin had given her a long-winded lecture about involving a kid in such a dangerous mission. She'd retaliated by buying Frank a bag of peanuts, and from then on their friendship – for that was what it had become, by then - took on an air of good-natured conspiracy. She was worried about him getting in the way, or getting hurt; but she couldn't deny that he was at least making himself useful.

He hadn't taken it at all well when it was over, when she told him she had to leave.

"_I wanna join your outfit," _ he'd said.

"_No you don't, Frank," _ she'd told him, and meant it. He'd never had to face a Drone up close, to feel its scream boring into his mind as its claws tore his flesh. He hadn't had to see one of them kill someone he loved. He hadn't had to see the war take his friends one by one, as The Enemy grew in power by the moment - and if she had her way, he never would. The Einherjar were well-named – the "lone warriors," the Walking Dead. She – all of them – lived for nothing else but the conflict. It was all they had. The war had taken everything else from them. Rain hoped Frank had a chance for something more. That however bad his home life was, however alienated he was, what he'd be going into would have been ten times worse.

He hadn't seen it that way.

"_I could help you, just like I helped you before! You can't just leave me here!"_

She saw that he was fighting back tears, and she almost relented. Almost. He even saw it in her eyes.

(He'd die.)

(Oh, he might last for awhile. He might grow stronger as he grew older, might accept more of her training. The rest of his nanites might eventually activate, enabling him to develop his own power. Either that, or he'd just grow up, and eventually grow old.)

(He'd die. And when it came to it, she'd have to watch him die.)

"_I'm sorry, Frank. I can't take you with me, you know I can't -"_

"_You think I can't handle it, but I'll be big someday! I'll be big, and then you'll really be sorry -"_

_._

***

All of this was running through Rain's mind as she and Justin penetrated deeper into the woods.

_How did this happen? What am I going to do if he's harmed Michael? What am I going to do if he's harmed the children?_

_(What happened to his eye?)_

Even with all of the death she'd witnessed, the idea that Michael might himself be vulnerable, be threatened, was something that she'd never wanted to contemplate. He'd been there for her and her brother after their mother was killed, and she couldn't imagine that anything could permanently take him down. He was invincible, unbreakable. Surely he'd gotten away. Surely they'd find him, or _he'd _find _them -_ perfectly hale and unscathed, grinning larger than life.

Never mind what the hotheads in the Marduk Faction would do, if anything happened to the Prince-Royal of the Interstellar Alliance...

_What could Frank have possibly done, to give Michael just cause to retaliate like that?_

She'd always intended to come back, of course. See how Frank was doing. Maybe catch up. Maybe not, if it turned out he was living the completely normal life that she'd hoped he'd make for himself. But one mission had blurred into another, one year churning seamlessly on to the next. Belfast. Palestine. Beirut. Rwanda. Bosnia. Chernobyl. Columbia. Baghdad. South Central L.A. Fighting Drones in the Amazon Jungle. Slipping into the Gaza Strip - one step behind her target, one precarious step in front of the Mossad. Dancing back and forth between the Iron Curtain. And at some point, somewhere along the way, she'd almost _forgotten _about him...

_(Oh god I left him -)_

_(Oh god, I left him **again**.)_

" Talk to me," Justin said, as they began to see spiderwebs more and more frequently in the treetops above them. She was moving very fast, and he was struggling to keep up. "I've never seen you like this before, and it is _really_ making me nervous. What did you get into out here? What does it have to do with Michael?"

"I found him half-dead up the mountainside," Rain said finally, ducking around a thick strand of cobwebs that trailed from a branch overhead.

"WHAT?" Justin exclaimed, grabbing her by the shoulders. "You found Mike -"

"No. I found Frank," she said, pulling out of his grasp. "He has some sort of base up there. When I found it, it was a smoking ruin. His nanites are all active now. He's healing. I give it maybe a week before he's up and about again."

"You think the same people who went after Mike hit Frank?" Justin asked.

"No. I think it's possible that Frank tried to hit Michael, and Michael hit back. Hard."

"But what could have...where would he even have known Michael from? What possible reason could he have for attacking him?"

"I expect you'll know when I do," Rain said. "Assuming we can separate him from his men long enough to question him."

"His men?"

"Those that I saw, anyway."

"Great! There's nothing I love more than facing an army the morning after I've been chasing Michael's shadow around all night," Justin quipped.

"About that -" Rain grabbed Justin's arm and pulled him aside, as the line of helmeted soldiers who'd concealed themselves in a cul-de-sac of trees trained their weapons upon them.

Behind the soldiers, a voice shouted, "I WANT THEM TAKEN ALIVE!"


End file.
